Fed up with your phone's battery life? You should try this new tool

by
Jay Jay9/15/2015 10:36:22 AM

9/15/2015 10:36:22 AM

Even though we take great pains to ensure our smartphones run the least possible number of apps and features at all times, a few apps frequently lie low and avoid our sights as they keep suckling on our phone batteries.

The disturbing part of this is that most of this suckling happens when we're either sleeping or not using our smartphones. To counter this, researchers at Purdue University have come up with a new tool called Hush which serves as a background app-killer while you sleep.

The tool works perfectly when the smartphone screen is off. It suppresses background app activities, especially for those apps which you use sparingly and helps save battery life by up to 16 per cent.

Since the tool hasn't been commercialised yet, researchers are working towards turning it into an app for better user support. It is currently available as experimental software through GitHub.

"Being able to reduce the total daily energy drain by about 16 percent is rather significant because you can extend the battery charge by one-sixth. The big picture is that we want to double the battery life for smartphones," said Y. Charlie Hu, professor at Purdue University to Telegraph.

They are not the only ones though. The recently launched Huawei Mate S phone runs a tool called 'Protected apps' which lets you choose which apps should run when the screen is off. It also lets you choose if apps should feast on your mobile data or your home Wifi.

While modern smartphones are coming up with larger and more powerful batteries, a lot of them cannot survive more than a day of regular use. To enable longer usage, controlling and regulating your phone's apps and features rather than switching to larger batteries is the key.